With a quality left-handed going for the A's this game was over as soon as it got to 2-0.

What a joke. Duncan drops a very catchable fly ball; Lillibridge throws away a routine double play. McAlister can't get his slider over so he's forced to groove fastballs and gets taken deep twice. Just a sad excuse for a major league team right now. They really look like they're just going through the motions.

Tuned in, saw the score (5-0) and watched McAllister pitch for a while, then turned back to national politics.

It's a shame. McAllister is one of this season's few bright spots. You could see the disappointment on his face as he was taken out of the game. Manning, with good reason, was getting real pissy about the lack of offensive support.

This continued losing has to be taking its mental toll on all the younger guys. It's a shame, because there's enough young talent on this team to build around. (Never mind the fact that the build will take three or four years.) The last thing the Indians need is the big black cloud of LOSING hanging over the heads of the youngsters.

I agree with Peeker's post in another thread: this season is easily the most disappointing in recent Cleveland sports history.

I wonder if we will see any late season call ups? My reasoning is that the team is going nowhere, and each guy who plays on the major league team for a month will get 80 thousand. Can't see Dolan laying out cash like that. Like it or not, I think we see Shelly, Matt, and Hannahan the rest of the season.

Bigfist wrote:I wonder if we will see any late season call ups? My reasoning is that the team is going nowhere, and each guy who plays on the major league team for a month will get 80 thousand. Can't see Dolan laying out cash like that. Like it or not, I think we see Shelly, Matt, and Hannahan the rest of the season.

This.

This also is why you probably won't see Manny Acta fired. You think these cheap jagoffs are going to pay someone to stay home? Not going to happen. I would be VERY shocked if Acta was given the boot. If they stubbornly hung on to the Atomic Wedgie and even let him coach out the string in 2010, they sure as hell aren't going to fire a manager with more years on his contract.

I'm starting to wonder if they'll even buy out Hafner's contract, because he just might be healthy next year (and my hair might grow back).

Bigfist wrote:I wonder if we will see any late season call ups? My reasoning is that the team is going nowhere, and each guy who plays on the major league team for a month will get 80 thousand. Can't see Dolan laying out cash like that. Like it or not, I think we see Shelly, Matt, and Hannahan the rest of the season.

Nothing to do with money or any of that. We'll see a lot of Columbus Clippers come up when the rosters expand. They're about to be completely out of the wild card hunt.

Akron's steamrolling the Eastern League. Won't get any help there. They'll get some help from Columbus too.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

People that want Manny Acta to stick around need to give a reason why. Why should he stay? The team has totally quit on him. They are playing at a 120 loss pace since the all-star break. What manager would ever survive this? Not even Brad Mills, on a team that was EXPECTED to lose 100+ games, survived it.

No crap the team stinks. What manager lost 100 games with a good team?

rigs wrote:People that want Manny Acta to stick around need to give a reason why. Why should he stay? The team has totally quit on him. They are playing at a 120 loss pace since the all-star break. What manager would ever survive this? Not even Brad Mills, on a team that was EXPECTED to lose 100+ games, survived it.

No crap the team stinks. What manager lost 100 games with a good team?

I don't think Acta keeps his job, but for the sake of devil's advocate, I'll play your game.

A team of replacement level players is projected by Baseball-Reference to finish 51-111. In Acta's five full years as manager, he has had teams that were 17, 10.4, 21.5, 22.6, and this season's team is 11.3 wins above replacement players.

That means Acta should have records of 68-94, 61-101, 73-89, 74-88, and this season should end 62-100. That's a combined 338-472. So far, Acta is 336-441 with 32 games to go. So, he has overachieved as a manager with a total lack of talent on his ballclubs.

He's a very progressive manager with statistics. If he had the necessary tools for the job, I believe he would be able to use them effectively. He studies sabermetric stats and matchups. That should mesh well with most front offices in the league.

I don't think this year's team has quit on him, per se, they've quit on themselves. It shouldn't be the manager's job to play cheerleader and get everybody all riled up. It's a team devoid of on-field leaders and with only a couple of energy guys (Kipnis may be the only one).

Acta had two really strong first halves with teams that were severely flawed. There's something to be said for that, especially last year's team that dealt with a lot of injuries throughout the year.

Acta's not the problem. The team is.

None of this will be enough to keep his job, and, frankly, I don't think he wants to keep this job and endure a 100-loss season next year.

I can't say for certain how Acta is with the players. There has been regression with several guys, and I'm not entirely sure how much of that is on Acta. I don't know what his day-to-day dealings are with players, or if he delegates that to his coaching staff.

Like Lead Pipe likes to point out, I don't know how much a manager truly matters. I can take it or leave it with Acta for next season. I don't think it matters either way.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

rigs wrote:People that want Manny Acta to stick around need to give a reason why. Why should he stay? The team has totally quit on him. They are playing at a 120 loss pace since the all-star break. What manager would ever survive this? Not even Brad Mills, on a team that was EXPECTED to lose 100+ games, survived it.

No crap the team stinks. What manager lost 100 games with a good team?

I don't think Acta keeps his job, but for the sake of devil's advocate, I'll play your game.

A team of replacement level players is projected by Baseball-Reference to finish 51-111. In Acta's five full years as manager, he has had teams that were 17, 10.4, 21.5, 22.6, and this season's team is 11.3 wins above replacement players.

That means Acta should have records of 68-94, 61-101, 73-89, 74-88, and this season should end 62-100. That's a combined 338-472. So far, Acta is 336-441 with 32 games to go. So, he has overachieved as a manager with a total lack of talent on his ballclubs.

He's a very progressive manager with statistics. If he had the necessary tools for the job, I believe he would be able to use them effectively. He studies sabermetric stats and matchups. That should mesh well with most front offices in the league.

I don't think this year's team has quit on him, per se, they've quit on themselves. It shouldn't be the manager's job to play cheerleader and get everybody all riled up. It's a team devoid of on-field leaders and with only a couple of energy guys (Kipnis may be the only one).

Acta had two really strong first halves with teams that were severely flawed. There's something to be said for that, especially last year's team that dealt with a lot of injuries throughout the year.

Acta's not the problem. The team is.

None of this will be enough to keep his job, and, frankly, I don't think he wants to keep this job and endure a 100-loss season next year.

I can't say for certain how Acta is with the players. There has been regression with several guys, and I'm not entirely sure how much of that is on Acta. I don't know what his day-to-day dealings are with players, or if he delegates that to his coaching staff.

Like Lead Pipe likes to point out, I don't know how much a manager truly matters. I can take it or leave it with Acta for next season. I don't think it matters either way.

Well, I have no idea if Acta deserves to be fired or not, but for over a hundred years managers have been fired for having poor records. Was it Wedge's fault the 2008 and 2009 teams stunk? Or Grover's fault the 1999 season ended in a horrible playoff loss? He had no pitchers to work with either. Geez....we can go back to Frank Robinson, Jeff Torborg, Dave Garcia, Mel McGaha, Al Dark, and Ken Aspromente and say..it wasn't their fault. They had some awful rosters. Should they have been kept?

I guess the one thing we can look at is that Jim Riggleman, with basically the same roster as Acta, got the 2009 Nationals to 33-42 record after Acta was fired. This is nothing to write home about, but the improvement went on for a much longer period of time than the brief bump a team generally gets under a new manager.

I am also in the camp that managers are pretty much figure heads/useless/all the same, however you want to say it. There are areas in which a trained monkey COULD NOT do their job, and this is where some differ, but in reference to this team, other than a person being able to see the future , NO manager could have stopped this train wreck. Its up to the talent on the field.